


Elternschaft

by JinjoJess



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Fluff, Birthday Presents, F/F, Light Angst, OT3, Slight Canon Divergence, Wife Squad, post-game: crimson flower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24858697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JinjoJess/pseuds/JinjoJess
Summary: Edelgard's been so busy worrying about how to turn Fodlan over to the people that she's barely noticed how old she's gotten.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg, Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Dorothea Arnault/My Unit | Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Kudos: 29





	Elternschaft

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Edelgard!
> 
> Wanted to get some Wife Squad goodness out for Edelgard's birthday.  
> There's a lot here I want to fuss over but hey, perfect is the enemy of good, right?
> 
> (As always, Satomi = f!Byleth)
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

For the first time in years, Edelgard dreamed of her parents. 

The dream was simple: her mother and father slowly dancing together in a quiet room. Judging by the decorations on the wall, it was a nursery, and the wooden slab partially obstructing her vision suggested she was tucked into a cradle. 

Edelgard watched her parents sway to an imaginary tune across the floor. Her mother pressed her palm to her father's face, the way she often had to Edelgard, and her father responded by rubbing the tip of his nose against her mother's. 

The accuracy of her parents' mannerisms caused a twinge in her heart. Was this merely a dream, or was it a memory? 

Ionius leaned down to whisper something into her mother's ear, a wide smile blooming across her features. 

_ How nice, _ Edelgard thought, reaching a small, chubby arm into her own line of vision,  _ to exist because of love.  _

"Lady Edelgard."

Edelgard's eyes snapped open, blinking a few times to clear her vision. She saw her own hand, criss-crossed with faint scars, reaching up toward the two-headed eagle embroidered into the canopy. 

Embarrassed, she let it drop. 

"Good morning, Hubert."

"Good morning, Your Majesty." Hubert paused a moment before adding, "Did you sleep well?" 

Cheeky weasel. 

"Yes, until some brooding advisor so rudely woke me."

"Apologies. If it were up to me, I'd let you spend today lounging in bed, but I'm afraid the building blocks of self-governance cannot assemble themselves."

"Since when do you feel the need to give me a day off?" Edelgard rolled onto her side, finding herself alone under the sheets. "Where are Satomi and Dorothea?" 

"Lady Satomi set off early this morning with Sir Ingrid for a mission. Ms. Arnault mentioned having urgent business to attend to at the theater."

"Ah."

Understandable. The war may have been long over, but there was still work to do. 

That didn't make waking up in an empty bed any less disappointing. 

"As for my uncharacteristic leniency, have you forgotten what today is?" 

"The day I fix tax law?"

"No."

"The day the envoys from Almyra visit?" 

"No."

"The day I dismiss you and exile you to Sreng."

"Unfortunately not." Hubert shifted his weight. "Today is my lady's 29th birthday."

Oh.

"Twenty-nine," Edelgard repeated. "Really?" 

"If you would like me to check my math…"

Edelgard rolled onto her back again, arms splayed. 

"I suppose…part of me felt as though I'd never…"

"Thankfully Lord Linhardt was able to remove that superfluous crest."

"No, no, not that. Though I suppose you have a point. I meant… This was how old Ada was when…"

Hubert cleared his throat. "I remember."

Edelgard reached up to trace the scars on her chest. 

"I saw her die, Hubert. Heidi tried to hide it from me, but I saw them overwhelm her." She pressed her nail into the scar tissue. "I knew, then. That we were done for. If they could take down Ada, there was no stopping them."

Adelaide. Her eldest sibling, bearer of a major Crest of Seiros. Military genius, unmatched in swordplay--perhaps even better than Satomi. Ionius's true heir. 

How much of the groundwork for Edelgard's revolution had been laid by Adelaide? How many connections and alliances had Edelgard leveraged thanks to her sister's years of covert machinations? How many times had Adelaide primed Ionius to abdicate to his daughter before Edelgard had finally asked?

Adelaide should have been the one to take charge of Adrestria and unite Fodlan. Adelaide should have been happily married to Jaroslava, her commoner vassal, by now. 

Instead, she'd succumbed to thousands of cuts and countless arrowheads, fighting to save her siblings from experimentation. A barrel of preservatives had been her only throne. 

"Lady Adelaide would be proud of you," Hubert finally said. 

"Ada never would have taken this many years to guide Fodlan into democracy. Even longer, considering how much work remains to be done."

"You don't know that."

"Hubert," Edelgard groaned, "what if it takes longer than the course of my life?" 

She'd never known Hubert to be the type who could be stunned into silence, yet it took him several moments to answer. 

"You will figure something out, my lady. For today, I implore you to try to enjoy your birthday."

*** * ***

Just to spite Hubert, Edelgard took extra long in the bath. She patted her hair dry with her towel for a good thirty minutes, watching Hubert squirm in the mirror behind her. 

When Edelgard had been a child, her oldest brother Osgar had always attempted to bake her a cake for her birthday. Every year it had been a disaster, filling the kitchen and dining room with smoke. Afterward Heidelinde and Randulf would always produce a second cake from one of Enbarr's finest bakeries. 

"I imagine Satomi will miss my birthday this year. Such a shame."

Hubert grunted in response. 

"Hubert, would you mind running to Die Konditorei today? I'm in the mood for one of their lemon cakes."

"Perhaps, if there's time."

"Maybe we could send word to Dorothea to pick it up on her way home tonight." Edelgard stabbed a pin into her hair. "She  _ is _ coming home tonight, yes?" 

"Presumably."

“It certainly would be nice if at least one of my wives was present to celebrate my birthday.”

“Indeed.”

Edelgard paused, examining her half-styled hair. She’d once told Satomi over tea that despite not bothering to wear much in the way of makeup, she preferred to spend time arranging her hair.

Now though, it seemed silly to bother.

No one was going to see her anyway.

Edelgard ripped the pins from her hair and tossed them onto her vanity. She didn’t bother to brush her hair before standing up and turning to Hubert.

“Alright, I’ve made you wait long enough. Let’s get breakfast.”

“My lady,” Hubert said, his eyes flicking toward Edelgard’s hair and back to her face, “are you certain you want to head downstairs like that?”

“I don’t remember asking for your input on my appearance.” Edelgard patted the frizzy flyaways on the side of her head. “Somehow I doubt Dorothea left you in charge on that front.”

“Apologies, your Majesty.”

Hubert stepped aside, holding the bedroom door open. Edelgard passed beneath his arm and into the cool shade of the corridor.

*** * ***

Despite Hubert’s plea for her to enjoy her birthday, she had more important matters on her mind. Fodlan was still a long way off from being ready to hand off to the people, and for every solution Edelgard devised, three more problems sprouted in its place.

If things continued at this rate, she may never get to retire.

The best course of action would be to choose someone to carry on her work once she was no longer able to continue. However, the question was...who? 

As dearly as she loved them, Edelgard couldn’t picture either of her wives stepping into her shoes. Dorothea would never want to, for one thing, and Satomi… Well. If Fodlan was to be locked into eternal war, she’d be in good hands, but as for policy and economics, there had to be better choices.

Claude? He certainly had the intelligence and mettle to rule, though he’d declined the last time she’d offered to promote him within her cabinet. Lately he’d been more consumed with his cross-cultural work between Fodlan and Almyra. 

Would Petra want to take on the additional responsibilities of Fodlan? Or could Lysithea be persuaded?

Entirely engrossed in this line of thought, Edelgard barely noticed she’d walked downstairs and into the dining room.

Two loud voices shattered her concentration.

“ _HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EL!_ ”

Startled, Edelgard looked up to see Satomi and Dorothea standing beside her seat at the head of the table, grinning widely. Dorothea held a bouquet of roses and carnations, while Satomi was cradling a stuffed bear wearing a red ribbon and a black vest.

“What are you two doing here? I thought you were both busy today?”

“We were,” Satomi said. Dorothea gestured with a hand toward the table, where Edelgard could see that most of the seats were filled.

That hadn’t happened since before the experimentation.

Lining either side of the dining table were friends and former classmates...all clad in imperial reds and blacks, light brown wigs on their heads.

“What is this?” Edelgard mumbled, moving toward her seat.

“Ah, Lady Edelgard,” Hubert said, gently taking her by the arm. “Please, sit in your assigned seat.”

Dazed, she allowed him to guide her to the seat she’d sat in as a child. Edelgard settled into the chair between Ingrid, who was dressed as her closest older sister Heidelinde, and Lysithea, dressed as her younger sister Hildegard. Caspar, looking very much like Randulf, her brother who was only eighteen months her senior, flashed a smile from across the table. Beside him sat Lindhart, who was not doing a very good impression of the youngest Hresvelg child, Arnold. Ashe was fidgeting behind him, looking much more accurate to Arnold’s vassal Ortwin.

Edelgard looked further up the table, seeing other friends as her siblings: Claude as her brother Osgar, Sylvain as her brother Gerfrid, Leonie as her brother Bertrand, Bernadetta as her sister Isolde, Ferdinand as her brother Heidrich.

They were playing their parts to varying degrees of accuracy, though Edelgard couldn’t take her eyes off Petra sitting in what was usually Dorothea’s place, to the left of the Emperor’s seat. Whereas usually Edelgard thought of Petra as a kind and earnest person, she had clearly been coached by someone who had known Adelaide quite well--she was staring forward, silent and cool, yet crackling with an invisible power. Shamir stood behind her; Edelgard assumed she was meant to be Jaroslava.

Edelgard’s eyes flicked to Hubert for a moment, his face relaxed into a somewhat friendly scowl.

No wonder he’d been eager for her to get ready.

Satomi took a fork and tapped it against a glass, calling their attention to the head of the table. Edelgard hadn’t noticed before, but she was wearing an old suit of Ionius’s--a quick look confirmed that Dorothea had on one of her mother’s dresses. 

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat as Satomi cleared her throat and began to speak.

“My dear children, thank you for assembling in the dining hall for our celebration today.”

That was not really how her father had spoken, and Edelgard could see Dorothea subtly trying to direct from Satomi’s usual chair to the right of the table head, but she appreciated the effort.

“Today we are here to celebrate the birth of our dear El, whom we all love very much.”

“Hear, hear!” cried the guests, raising their glasses.

“Thank you, darling,” Dorothea said, standing up to put a hand on Satomi’s elbow. “But why don’t we let the birthday girl share a few words?”

Every face at the table turned toward Edelgard then. She stood, struggling to force the ball of emotions down her throat.

“I…” she croaked, fingers trembling. 

How long had they been planning this? In retrospect, Satomi had clearly gone to collect all of these friends from all over the continent, and the clothes and wigs were obviously the work of Dorothea’s costume department at the theater. 

Of course. Of course they had known that this was exactly what she’d needed. 

Good, loving, considerate wives. 

The warmth in Edelgard’s stomach burned. It was almost unbearable, and she could feel tears welling in her eyes. 

It was so obvious, in that moment.

What to do if her work outlived her.

“Satomi, Dorothea…” She forced the words out, not caring about the tears that came with them. “I want to have a child with you!”

A hush descended over the table for several terrible seconds, before Petra slammed a fist on the table and let out a yell.

“Congratulations!” Petra stood, slapping a palm on Satomi’s shoulder before moving to shake Dorothea’s hand.

The rest of the guests erupted into applause.

“Honey, are you...serious?” Dorothea said, her features stretched oddly, as if she were trapped between a smile and a frown.

“Yeah, do you mean it, El?” Satomi’s eyes sparkled.

Edelgard closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.

“I do,” she said, opening them.

Dorothea pressed a hand to her heart and leaned on Satomi, who gasped as tears began to stream down her cheeks. 

Petra nodded, smile still wide and warm.

“It is a very good thing,” she said. “Your child will be having much happiness in life.”

_ I hope so,  _ Edelgard thought.

“We are having a saying in Brigid, you know.”

“What’s that?” Satomi asked, arm wrapped around Dorothea’s waist. 

“A child conceived in love is never long wet from rain.”

_ That’s right.  _ Edelgard smiled, backing away from her place at the table to go join her wives.  _ Our child will exist because of love, and that is the best way to be. _


End file.
